Wireless Controller?

**nub111** · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Baltimore, MD

Would you guys ever consider making your controllers wireless? I recently converted two of mine using TheDude06's article on Make!, and I was just wondering if anyone had done the same, or was thinking about doing so.
-J

**krimsunmunkeys** · Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 1:04 am Post subject:

That is probably a good idea. Recently, I've seen a sharp increase in "Rocking Out Errors" (controller not detected) and this is probably a good remedy for my problem, assuming that it would work correctly.

Where can I get information on how to do this?

**nub111** · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Baltimore, MD

Here's the page I used to mod mine:
http://forums.makezine.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=33

It basically reduces your guitar to a series of switches, connected to the buttons on the wireless controller's circuit board. I'm guessing that your problems aren't with the switches/buttons themselves, so I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work.

His instructions aren't too detailed, so I made a more in-depth guide to modding it. I'll post a link later, when I get them up.

-J

**nub111** · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Baltimore, MD

Link to the guide I wrote:

http://www.xanga.com/vortex08

**krimsunmunkeys** · Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 10:53 pm Post subject:

Nice guide, but I'm scared. If I can get the money for materials (at least 2 weeks), then I am willing to try. However, I have absolutely no electrical experience. Is this something I should bother trying? How easy is it to screw up?

**nub111** · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Baltimore, MD

Hmm... that's a good question. Have you ever used a soldering iron before? You mentioned not having any electrical experience, and I wrote the guide so that it's not essential to know anything about the "workings" of either the controller board or the guitar board.

The only really "difficult" thing is soldering, which can be tricky when working with small soldering disks - if you can get your hands on a soldering iron and some solder, practice on wires and old circuit boards until you get the hang of it. Everything else is really just matching this wire with that, etc, and organizing the wires so that it all stays in place. And oh - being gentle with the controller board. Soldered connections have a tendency to pull off when handled too roughly, so if you go slowly and carefully, you shouldn't have too much of a problem, after you get the knack of soldering stuff.

It's really up to you - but it's definitely do-able, so long as you learn how to solder : )

As to how easy it is to screw up, here's the thing: you basically wreck your guitar controller while doing this mod, so there's no going back, at least the way I do it. This is because you have to cut the connections on the actual guitar circuit board to get the strum switches to work correctly. But since the guitar itself is reduced to a bunch of switches, there's really no chance of wrecking the guitar (in that it wouldn't work as a wireless controller), per se, since everything can always be rewired. The only thing that -could- be wrecked is the controller circuit board, but since you'd buy the two-pack, you get two chances to get it working - and really, an infinite number, depending on how much you wanna shell out for new wireless controllers.

-J

Interesting Factoid: the ps2 recognizes a guitar controller because the left d-pad is permanently wired in down position, so if you hold the left dpad down on a regular analog controller, you'll find that the up and down d-pad corresponds to strum up and strum down, while R2, circle, square, x, and triangle control the fret buttons.

**random** · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 59

krimsunmunkeys, you could get by without the wireless mod if you just want to cut out the part of your cord that's flaky and then resolder the little wires inside. I did this and it completely fixed my "rocking out too hard" problems.

Later I fried my circuit board with static electricity (I don't think that was related to my cord fix because it happened to several others as well) and had to do the wireless upgrade to resurrect it. That's a lot more work, although it is pretty cool.

**brummie** · Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 1

Read the previous posts and the thought of soldering scares me

I thought I would recommend the wireless adapter that I have bought from the company below

http://www.consoleplus.co.uk/product_info.php?pName=ems-rf-wireless-adapter-for-ps2

You can go wireless without any soldering required and it works! If you check on ebay the company sells on there as well, I got mine in an auction for UK £1.20 + 2.90 p+p (about 7.5 dollars)

**herb007** · Joined: 01 Jun 2006 Posts: 45

I made one of my guitars wireless, it works really well and wasn't that hard to do. I used the dude's method too.